Watching Clan Head Koeda Dazen, Seinosuke, and Yūsuke's reactions, Kyoichi couldn't help but laugh. The reputation of the Yellow Flash was truly terrifying. But that single laugh instantly infuriated Seinosuke, who snapped at him:
"Kyoichi, you heartless bastard! What, you planning to hand over our three heads as a gift to the Yellow Flash?"
"Who are you calling heartless?"
Kyoichi shot back without hesitation.
"These past few days I've racked my brains trying to find a way for all of us to escape Iwagakure. I risked my own neck to establish contact with the Yellow Flash, pulled every string I could, and finally got him to agree to help us. And somehow, in your mouth, that makes me heartless?"
"Huh? Rescue?"
Seinosuke froze, his mind stalling.
Instead, it was the sixty-five-year-old Clan Head Koeda Dazen who reacted first, staring at Kyoichi in disbelief.
"Kyoichi… you mean to say you persuaded the Yellow Flash to help us escape?"
"That's right."
Kyoichi nodded.
"Kyoichi, are you sure you're not joking with us?"
Seinosuke finally snapped out of it and couldn't help asking again.
"Same thing I said before—Seinosuke, do I strike you as the kind of man who spouts nonsense?" Kyoichi tossed the question back at him.
"..."
Seinosuke opened his mouth, but no words came out.
"How did you pull it off?" pressed Dazen.
"I helped the Yellow Flash's disciples destroy the Kannabi Bridge. But more importantly, I captured one of his students. And… just yesterday, I crossed hands with the Yellow Flash himself. He couldn't do anything to me."
As he said this, a hint of pride crept onto Kyoichi's face.
No matter how you looked at it, to retreat unscathed from the Yellow Flash's hands was an achievement worth boasting about.
"For real?"
Yūsuke's eyes went wide.
"Hmm… was it that Earth Spear technique?"
Dazen recalled the top-tier hardening jutsu Kyoichi had demonstrated to him when Enkō had come calling a few days ago.
"As expected, the elder still has the sharpest eye. You're right—his speed really does live up to his name, flashing like lightning. But his attacks weren't enough to pierce my defenses… so I managed to survive."
Kyoichi didn't hide anything, speaking frankly about how he had lived through it.
And then he added,
"But I reckon the Yellow Flash will soon find a way to compensate for that lack of attack power. If you're unlucky enough to run into him on the battlefield later, the best thing is to dive underground and flee. Don't even think about trying to tank him with hardening techniques."
"That's rich, coming from you. I'm a medical-nin—fighting isn't even my job," muttered Seinosuke.
Yūsuke, meanwhile, gave Kyoichi a resentful look.
"You talk as if mastering Earth Spear is something anyone could do."
He was naturally gifted with both earth and wind chakra affinities, and besides his family's secret arts, he had considerable skill in earth-style jutsu. He had once tried to study Earth Spear, one of the Koeda clan's most advanced earth-style techniques. But its difficulty was beyond extreme.
Even for a born genius like Yūsuke, the technique proved insurmountable. After wasting countless hours, he had been forced to abandon it.
"...Kyoichi, are you sure Konoha's Yellow Flash will actually lend us his strength?" Unlike Seinosuke and Yūsuke, who were distracted by talk of Earth Spear, Dazen kept his focus on what mattered most: the survival of their clan.
"I can't swear on my life that there'll be no betrayal," Kyoichi said solemnly, shaking his head. "All I can say is, if the Yellow Flash tries to play us dirty, I'll kill his student on the spot, then—run. Live. Carry on the clan's bloodline. And one day, find a chance for revenge!"
"...Kyoichi, you rascal…"
Seinosuke hissed through his teeth, staring at him, at a loss for words.
But Dazen suddenly burst into laughter.
"Hah! Well said! That's exactly the way it should be! Of course, I want all of you—Seinosuke, Yūsuke, and you too, Kyoichi—to live if possible. But if only one survives, don't despair. Do as Kyoichi said: spread our clan's branches, let the Koeda bloodline flourish. If the chance for vengeance comes, seize it. If it doesn't… then have more children, and leave revenge to the future!"
Seinosuke and Yūsuke's faces twitched, but they could only nod.
"Kyoichi, if you truly carry such resolve, then I'm at ease. Even if I die now, I have nothing to fear."
Dazen smiled, the heavy clouds on his face vanishing completely for the first time.
"Don't, Clan Head! Don't even say that!"
Kyoichi waved his hands frantically.
"We youngsters may not have any ties with the Kiri-nin, but you do. If you die now, they might just turn on their word. Even if you plan to go, at least wait until we've found a foothold in Kirigakure!"
"..."
Dazen's eyes bulged, left speechless by Kyoichi's bluntness.
Damn it, so now he wasn't even allowed to die? Life really wasn't easy.
"Enough, Kyoichi—cut the nonsense. Tell me your plan straight. You wouldn't go to such lengths to make contact with Konoha's Yellow Flash just for the sake of saving this handful of us, would you?"
By "this handful," he meant the surviving Koeda shinobi currently trapped in the Iwa army's main camp here in the Land of Grass. Aside from the jōnin seated here, the Koeda clan still had six chūnin and two genin alive. Counting everyone—including Kyoichi—the clan had only twelve people left.
"This is just the first step."
Kyoichi didn't hide his intentions from Dazen, Seinosuke, and Yūsuke.
"Once the Clan Head and you all are safe, I intend to work with the Yellow Flash to bring out the rest of our kin from the village."
"Is that even possible?" Yūsuke exclaimed.
"...If the Yellow Flash is willing to cooperate, we should be able to save some of them. But to bring out everyone still inside the village? You'd need the Second Hokage himself to come back from the dead. I doubt the Yellow Flash has enough chakra for something on that scale."
Dazen, who had once seen the Second Hokage's brilliance firsthand, had no doubt about the might of Flying Thunder God. But he also knew the Yellow Flash lacked the monstrous chakra reserves of the Senju or Uzumaki clans—the so-called perpetual motion engines of the shinobi world.
The Yellow Flash… his real name, if he remembered right, was Namikaze Minato.
To be honest, just hearing that name was enough to tell he was most likely a "mutant" genius from the civilian class. Without the inheritance of an ancient bloodline, there was no way he could ever match the man once hailed as "the fastest shinobi in the world," the Second Hokage himself.